The Latest from Iran (20 November): A Curious "Stability"

2033 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. And so, at the end of the day, back to the start and our special analysis....

Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, has edged closer to calling the Government's bluff on arresting him if he leaves London and steps foot on Iranian soil. Hashemi, in a letter to Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, has said, "If you stop bargaining, I'll return to Iran to expose the liars."

2030 GMT: More "Unity" from Parliament? Ali Asgari, known as a hard-line conservative MP, has said "getting to power by immoral acts is to be condemned" and reformists should not be excluded from the Iranian system.

2020 GMT: Execution Watch (Tour of Europe Edition). Khabar Online reports that 36 Iranian lawyers will soon be visiting the European Judicial Centre. Ostensbly, the tour is to discuss comparative law; however, the specific intention is tipped off in a passage about the death sentence imposed on Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

The Iranian attorneys will explain that execution is a legal sentence for the murder of Ashtiani's husband (actually, the sentence was initially imposed for adultery and Ashtiani was subsequently convicted of complicity in the murder, not of committing it), that execution by stoning has been suspended, and that very few people in Iran receive the stoning penalty.

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Iran Latest: The Regime's War on the Lawyers --- 3 More Arrested

Three more prominent defence attorneys have been detained in Iran. At 4 a.m. local time, Sara Sabaghian, Maryam Kianarsi, and Maryam Karbasi were arrested by security officers at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport as they returned from Turkey. There is no news of the whereabouts of the three lawyers. 

Sara Sabaghian is a member of the Bar Association's Committee for the Defense of Women and Children's Rights. She was previously arrested on 8  July with other lawyers, including Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a founding member of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi's Center for Defenders of Human Rights. Sabaghian is one of the lawyers representing the web blogger Hossein Ronaghi-Maleki (Babak Khorramdin), who has been sentenced to 15 years prison. 

Maryam Kianarsi is the lawyer for Kobra Najar, a women who has been sentenced to death by stoning.

The three women join other imprisoned lawyers such as Nasrine Sotoudeh and Houton Kian. Others such as Mohammad Mostafaei have fled Iran to avoid arrest.